Final Words
Speculation has churned for months over whether AMD could reach the release speeds necessary for Athlon64 to compete effectively with Pentium 4 and the upcoming Prescott processor. The other concern was whether 32-bit performance would be good enough to make the Athlon64 the winner that AMD needs right now. If Athlon64 is released as a 2.0GHz chip, as rumors have reported, then it looks like Athlon64 will be a Processor that is competitive with the best Pentium 4 in all areas, with compelling performance in several areas.The impact of Dual-Channel memory is a little harder to estimate in our tests. Athlon64 has been widely reported to be single-channel, where Opteron is Dual-Channel. Again, we expect our results reported here to be in the ballpark. Particularly since reports from the web now indicate there will also be an AthlonFX introduced on the 23rd that is targeted at the Enthusiast, runs even faster, and is based on the Opteron with Dual-Channel memory.
Gaming is one area where our tests show Opteron at 2.0GHZ an amazing performer. When you find game benchmarks 10% to 20% higher, you are genuinely impressed. However, in some of the very latest DX9 benchmarks, Athlon64/Opteron was 40% to 50% faster. This will get the attention of the gaming community, which seems to have a genuine affection for anything AMD already. It is the kind of trend-setting performance that Athlon64 needed to get the attention of an influential market segment.
Workstation Graphics was expected to be a good performer for Athlon64/Opteron, and across the board, the 2.0Ghz Opteron did very well against the best from Intel. One particularly noteworthy area was the performance of the A64 level Opteron compared to an 875 Dual Xeon 3.06 system. We really expected the Xeon dually to trounce our single Opteron, but instead, found a virtual dead-heat. Multiple Opteron systems have been setting records in many areas, and we are certainly looking forward to looking at multiple 200 series Opterons after seeing what our single 144 can do.
The Content Creation and General Usage performance, while competitive, did not stand out like the other performance areas for the 2.0GHz Opteron. We were not really surprised in the Content Creation area, which has always been a challenge for AMD. But, we were a little surprised in the General Usage/Business area, which has always been an AMD strong suit. Since the top performers in this area are nForce2/Athlon combos, we expect that final release products will fare much better in this area. Remember that our Reference board is now a couple of months old, and much has been done in tweaking the nForce3 chipset already. We would be surprised if the Athlon64/nForce3 combo does not perform better in almost every area at launch.
As excited as we are with the performance we found in our Opteron tweaked to Athlon64, keep in mind that this is all 32-bit performance. To quote AMD:
“AMD64 processors like the AMD Opteron and upcoming AMD Athlon 64 processors are compatible with today’s hardware and software and smooth the transition to the next crucial step in the evolution of the personal computer, workstation, server, and supercomputing cluster.”While delayed, Microsoft’s 64-bit Operating System will carry Athlon64/Opteron to even higher Performance levels. There are also other 64-bit alternatives like Linux, which are not delayed, and who now have a platform opportunity to really grow as the 64-bit alternative. Time will tell if these other players will have any real impact on the 64-bit market. To make launch even more intriguing, we are also seeing many reports that another Athlon64, geared to the Enthusiast community, clocked higher, and an ever better performer, may also emerge on September 23rd.
These all look like good omens for AMD, and after a very long wait, it’s about time!!
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Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Hey Wes, I've got some minor nitpicking to do. The graphs look great, but there's no unit labels on them. I know what the labels should be, but when you're presenting data you should always be sure to include labels for everything on the plot. Otherwise, you run into the possibility of misrepresenting data. Please make sure that all the graphs on future previews/reviews have their units labeled and perhaps even "bigger is better/shorter is faster"-like comments. Just addressing a pet peeve of mine. Aside from that, great article! Thanks.Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
This is not exactly related but for future motherboards/chipsets using this upcoming processor please use a RD2 PC Geiger (http://www.ioss.com.tw/web/English/RD2PCGeiger.htm... that you may provide us with information about the PCI bus frequency - important for overclocking.Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
#25. Ive tried both intel and AMD solutions for my personal machines at home. 10 times out of 10, AMd's have little quirks with them. the ride the bleeding edge.The company is losing money and cant continue to dump into R&D much longer, while INTEL's stock doubled in price in the last 4 months and is still rated a five star buy buy buy. Markets dont lie. The money is betting against AMD and in the fast moving techincal processor market where R&D is the most important aspect in the business model, AMD is losing. They just dont have the cash or assets to compete. The only thing they are good for is controlling The price Intel charges.
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
hey #25 amd cant even get a cpu to the 3 ghz range. They had to create a virtual 3200+. the reason is an athalon runnig at 3 ghz is a FIRE HAZARD.Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
#24, that's funny! I didn't think that Intel fanboys still read AMD articles because in the end Intel is always better right?
So why waste your time reading the article if you already know what is best? Do you feel threatened that you won't have the best CPU anymore?
Go and cry to momy.
Personally, I found this article very educational because I had my mind set on buying an Intel 2.4C CPU and overclocking to 1000 FSB with DDR 500 but now I'll wait a couple more weeks to see how the Athlon64 turns out and how overclockable it is.
I'd also like to thank AnandTech for increasing the number of articles produced in the last week. If this continues then I'll become a regular visitor.
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Face it. Intel makes the far superior Processor. That have the money to dump into R&D. This is a sign of the end for AMD. The farther they seperate themselves from the maintream, the more they lose.Who cares if they have some loyal geeks they worship them.
The real money is made by INTEL in the (Say it with me) BUSINESS market.
Their is a reason why dell wont touch an AMD
Its called UNRELIABLE
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
"Apparantly" socket 940 uses Registered dimms only, the boards do have overclocking options and DO overclock quite well.If you wait till QTR1 2004 you will be able to find socket 939 boards that do everything the 940 boards do, but can do this with Unbuffered Dimms also.
So if you want to upgrade but don't want to swap your standard PC3200 wait till early 2004 before you buy.
MS - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
Wes,Which settings are you using in the GunMetal Benchmarks? I cannot replicate your results there and I am wondering whether I am doing something wrong ..
TIA
Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
#20, 99% of gamers don't care about workstation benchmarks either :)Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link
#19, no one runs Quake 3 in Linux. 99% of gamers use Windows, it would be a complete waste of time to do Linux Quake 3 benchmarks.